The Sentinel-2A satellite takes us over western India to a seasonal salt marsh known as the Rann of Kutch. One of the largest salt deserts in the world, the area fills with water during the summer monsoon season. During the drier winter, the vast white desert is a popular tourist destination, particularly for the Rann Utsav festival centred around a luxury 'tent city', visible in the central-right part of the image as a series of semi-circles. Read more

An ancient script thats defied generations of archaeologists has yielded some of its secrets to artificially intelligent computers.Computational analysis of symbols used 4,000 years ago by a long-lost Indus Valley civilization suggests they represent a spoken language. Some frustrated linguists thought the symbols were merely pretty pictures.

"The underlying grammatical structure seems similar to whats found in many languages" - University of Washington computer scientist Rajesh Rao.

Sindh is one of the four provinces of Pakistan known by various names in the past, the name Sindh comes from the Indo-Aryans whose legends claimed that the Indus River flowed from the mouth of a lion or Sinh-ka-bab. In Sanskrit, the province was dubbed Sindhu meaning "ocean". The Assyrians (as early as the seventh century BCE) knew the region as Sinda, the Persians Abisind, the Greeks Sinthus, the Romans Sindus, the Chinese Sintow, while the Arabs dubbed it Sind. It is mentioned to be a part of Abhirrdesh (Abhira Kingdom) in Srimad Bhagavatam. Sindh was the first place where Islam spread in South Asia. As a result, it is often referred to as "Bab-al-Islam". Sindhi has to be proud of the cultures and contribution to mankind.

Steve Farmer one Harvard University Indologists has set $ 10,000 or INR 390000 for anyone who could decipher!$10,000 Prize Announced by Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel in Conjunction with the Publication ofThe Collapse of the Indus-Script Thesis: The Myth of a Literate Harappan Civilization ((PDF) Read more

The Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3300–1300 BC, flowered 2600–1900 BC) was an ancient civilization thriving along the Indus River and the Ghaggar-Hakra River in what is now Pakistan and north-western India. Among other names for this civilization is the Harappan Civilization, in reference to its first excavated city of Harappa.The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was discovered in the 1920s and is known only from archaeological excavations, except, possibly, for Sumerian references to Meluhha, which has been proposed to correspond to the IVC.

After finding meteorite-like objects and suspected “tektites”, the researchers are now planning to launch a search for high-pressure minerals.They have called for a detailed study of the site, including references to it in ancient Sanskrit texts to ascertain whether the crater led to the wiping out of the Harappan civilisation, which flourished between 3000 BC and 1500 BC.

Indian geologists claim to have discovered a possible Impact Crater in Kutch district of Gujarat dating back to the Vedic period.The crater, suspected to have been formed by the impact of an extra-terrestrial object, is seen as a circular feature near Luna village in the northwestern Banni Plains of the Great Rann in Kutch district.The site - the third in the country after Lonar in Maharashtra and Ramgarh in Rajasthan - is located about a kilometre away from a human settlement belonging to the Harappan period and may have found reference in ancient Sanskrit texts, which mention the "impact of a burning extraterrestrial object" in western India some 4,000-5,000 years ago.

Only a few craters formed due to the impact of extraterrestrial objects are known in India, e.g. Lonar crater of Maharashtra, Ramgarh and Dhala. This is a preliminary report of yet another possible impact crater in Kachchh district of western India. While most other recognized craters are located within hard rocks, this possible impact crater has a special significance as it is located within an extremely low-lying, flat terrain comprising unconsolidated soft sediments, and its appearance is unconventional and deceptive. Its importance is further augmented as an ancient human settlement belonging to the Harappan period is located about a kilometre southwest of the crater and the ancient Sanskrit texts refer to the impact of a burning extraterrestrial object in the western part of India some 4000–5000 years ago and the suspected area of impact happens to be the reat Rann in the district of Kachchh.

The suspected impact crater is seen as a circular feature near the village Luna, located in the northwestern part of Banni Plains at lat. 23°42¢17²N long. 69°15¢37²E. The site lies within extensively laid unconsolidated sediments, and the altitude of the region is scarcely around 3–5 m from the sea level. The inner part of the rim–crater junction is better defined than the outer rim due to vegetation. It measures 1.2 km E–W (~ 2.11 outer rim), 1.2 km N–S (~2.15 outer rim). The circular crater forms a shallow depression filled with sediments and the lowest point of the depression is hardly 2 m above the mean sea level. The rim of the crater rises about 2 m from the surroundings, which in turn averages to around 3.5 m. There is a dense growth of variety of Acacia species, Acacia nilotica (locally known as ‘desi baval’) at the inner part of the rim and surrounding it is the wild variety of the same, Prosopsis julifora (locally known as ‘gando baval’). The villagers claim that the growth of the wild thorny plants is only a recent phenomenon, about 3–4 decades; in fact growth of ‘gando baval’ (meaning ‘crazy plant’ in Gujarati) has become a menace all over Kachchh district in recent times.